Post by Martin Stett on Mar 25, 2020 19:37:03 GMT
A week before the theaters were shut down around here, I got the chance to watch The Amen Corner by James Baldwin at Shakespeare Theater Company in D.C. Good play, but of course so much of the discourse was around whether it "qualifies" as classical theater (the same people were arguing about STC's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and King Charles III, and whether these plays stay true to the "mission" of classical theater).
To me, TAC ticks all of the boxes of a great classical play: namely, it feels like something out of Shakespeare or Williams or any other great writer. I'm not sure what precisely qualifies something as "classical" (I don't have a list), but the discourse got me to thinking about asking all of you what "classics" are often forgotten in the discussion. This is basically a recommendation thread, as I have found that plays with actual pedigree tend to suck less often.
Basically, I'm looking for some lesser-known works of "great theater" so that if I see them pop up, they're on my radar. If anybody other than STC had put on The Amen Corner or Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector or Mike Bartlett's King Charles III or Ellen McLaughlin's amazing adaptation of The Oresteia, I wouldn't have paid attention. But this is a company I know for their quality in choosing great plays, and so these caught my eye.
Of course, if Covid-19 keeps a lockdown going for a long time, a whole lot of companies are gonna get wiped out completely, so there may not be a wide variety of choice for a little while.
To me, TAC ticks all of the boxes of a great classical play: namely, it feels like something out of Shakespeare or Williams or any other great writer. I'm not sure what precisely qualifies something as "classical" (I don't have a list), but the discourse got me to thinking about asking all of you what "classics" are often forgotten in the discussion. This is basically a recommendation thread, as I have found that plays with actual pedigree tend to suck less often.
Basically, I'm looking for some lesser-known works of "great theater" so that if I see them pop up, they're on my radar. If anybody other than STC had put on The Amen Corner or Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector or Mike Bartlett's King Charles III or Ellen McLaughlin's amazing adaptation of The Oresteia, I wouldn't have paid attention. But this is a company I know for their quality in choosing great plays, and so these caught my eye.
Of course, if Covid-19 keeps a lockdown going for a long time, a whole lot of companies are gonna get wiped out completely, so there may not be a wide variety of choice for a little while.
.
